Lotus Europa – Classic Car Reviews | Classic Motoring Magazine

The Europa was actually Colin Chapman’s intended replacement for the phenomenal Seven. He wanted a cheaper sportster than the Elan that was Seven simple enough for regular garages to work on it, yet also be a competent weekend racer like the earlier car. The result was Europa: a mid-engined, twoseat enclosed sports car with a fi breglass body that tipped the scales at barely less than 700kg and was so low it could challenge Ford’s GT40 at limbo dancing.

Sold alongside the iconic Elan, the Europa was stripped-out Lotus-motoring for real drivers. Never mind that the initial engine was a 1470cc Renault unit putting out less than 80bhp (about the same as the 1500cc Ford Cortina GT unit), the slippery design with its bread-van rear styling and sheer handling exuberance care of a mid-engined layout (highly radical for its times) put the Europa right up there in the pantheon of great Lotus sports cars, past present and future. It still is… but Europa is almost the forgotten Lotus these days meaning continued good value for money and exclusivity.

History

Lotus had a problem with the Europa. It had to be cheaper than the Elan so fi tting the excellent but expensive Lotus-Ford twin-cam engine to the car was a non starter, so another unit was needed. Inspiration came to Colin Chapman while wandering about the Paris Motor Show where Renault was proudly showing its all-new 16 hatchback.

That was powered by a 1470ccall-alloy four-cylinder, which captured Chapman’s imagination. He did the sums, reckoned it would fi t and bought it in. Renault was keen with the arrangement too so specially tuned the engine for a useful 78bhp.

The fi rst Europas, called the S1, were born in 1966 (the original brief was three years earlier) and were mainly sent abroad to Europe at the expense of UK custom because the company was worried about harming Elan sales. These fi rst S1 cars were a real oddity in that they had no opening windows, but relied on a pressurised ventilation system (that being a Lotus never worked of course!). The seats were also fi xed, so you adjusted your driving position by moving the pedals.

Today the S1 is the preserve of the seriously dedicated, mainly because the plastic body is bonded to the rust-prone chassis (which gave it a completely smooth underside; ground effect thinking by Chapman a decade before it was used in F1).

Only around 650 S1s were built, because in 1968 the more conventional S2 was born. It kept the same peppy engine and major underpinnings, but now the windows (electrically) opened, the seats moved and the body could be removed from the chassis. Over in America “Federal” versions got a 1565cc version of the Renault engine but, as ever, emissions regulations stifl ed it back to a paltry 80bhp.

A popular race car which always used Lotus- Ford power from the outset it was a logical step in 1971 to offer the 105bhp unit in the road cars. A year later the Europa Special came on stream with a big valve head to pump out 126bhp, which gave this fl yweight supercar pace. Hardly a cheap car at £1960, yet Specials outsold the lesser TCs by 2 to 1, with around 4500 fi nding homes globally.

But it wasn’t just the engine that was changed. The Lotus stylists had chopped down the rear sails on the back to give better rearward visibility and remove the ‘bread-van’ stigma. If that wasn’t temptation enough, the John Player Special version in black was launched to lay claim to the title of Sexiest Lotus Ever before the Esprit took over in 1975.

Driving It

Entering a Europa is a bit like getting into a bath only you’ve got further to go (although as with any Lotus of that era you will get wet…). It’s not as bad as the Elise mind but not by much…. Once you’re there though, it feels just right.

Performance was never electrifying in the Renault engined cars even in its day but it’s still quick enough thanks to the ultra-light weight. Contemporary road tests clocked the car at around 110mph with 60mph in a shade under 10 seconds. For sheer performance you need the later twin-cam cars, which took the 0-60mph down to a tad over seven seconds for the normal S2 and an astonishing 6.6 seconds for the superb Big Valve Special.

But all Europas sound great and can achieve around 25-30mpg. Of course Lotus knew how to make the Europa handle, helped by that very low centre of gravity: some even claim they’re more nimble than an Elan in the dry. In the wet however the light-nosed car tends to understeer with predictable lift-off oversteer, although naturally the Lotus-powered cars are easier to induce tail out motoring. Really, despite being four decades old an Europa still impresses with its sheer poise and agility.

Purists will say the earliest S1s drive the best because the bonded body gave them greater stiffness, but good luck fi nding one and living with it! Really, the closet you can get to driving an Europa is an early Mk1 MR2 – and that about says it all really.

Prices

The desirability of the later TC/Special versions over the Renault-engined S1/S2s are refl ected in the prices. A good S2 will fetch up to £8000, but a similarly immaculate TC/Special can fetch anything up to £16,000 (especially for the Commemorative car), which is good Elan territory. For the enthusiast, average ones fall to about £6000 for the later cars and £4000 for the S2, while resto jobs start from around £2000.

The ultimate uprated Banks models (a leading Europa specialist) have been known to cost up to £40,000.

Improvements

There’s a fair bit you can do to an Europa to make it ‘Q-roupa’. That mid-engine design with a spacious engine bay means a wide variety of different engines can be fi tted with ingenuity, including V8s (a special Rover V8-powered car by engineering fi rm GKN was made soon after the car’s launch) although more popular fi ts are the latest Vauxhall and Ford (Zetec) 16-valve units which are cheap, plentiful and punchy.

Bear in mind that the Renault engine was quite tunable in its day and period Gordini/Alpine/Else tuning parts can see as much as 150bhp extracted whilefor the Lotus T/C 160-180bhp is attainable for reliable road use. Handling?The front suspension is Elan, which in other words is Triumph Spitfi re. The rear set up is well sorted (f the geometry is correct) and Europas really only need uprated springs and dampers (the latter wear out very quickly) withwider modern rubber to keep this classic up with the best of them on today’s roads.